As the Economy Grows and Adds Jobs, Americans Keep Driving Less

The 12-month moving average of vehicle miles traveled, adjusted for population. Graph: Dshort.com

Well, there you have it.

Driving is on the decline — even as the economy grows.

You can see in the above chart, created by analyst Doug Short and brought to our attention by Jonathan Maus at BikePortland, America’s shrinking appetite for car travel is outlasting the recession. As the Center for Clean Air Policy pointed out in a 2011 report, the U.S. economy is increasingly “decoupled” from how much Americans drive.

Adjusting for changes in population, the amount of driving on American roads has fallen to 1999 levels. The sustained decline in driving during a period of economic growth is unprecedented in the 41-year period tracked by Short.

Contrast the drop in driving with sunnier employment figures, and it’s clear what’s going on here isn’t due just to job losses and the recession:

Indications are that American’s are driving less, but I don’t think there is currently sufficient evidence to conclude that this is in spite of the economy rather than because of it.

Andrew

Is there any evidence that this is caused by people being less and less willing to put up with long commutes? Increasing numbers of Americans live in big cities. As big city traffic gets worse and worse, and as single family houses become very expensive (e.g. in Los Angeles, Bay Area, New York, Washington, Toronto, Vancouver etc.) and more people live in condos then people will no longer want to live far from work. For example in Toronto where I live, single family houses in nice neighbourhoods cost $500000+ near downtown and major suburban job centres, more and more people live in condos, jobs are spread out everywhere and traffic in rush hour is horrible. The sensible thing to do to keep your commute short is to rent an apartment near your work, and I have given up on single family home ownership because I cannot afford it.

Erpolitics

This is great news – a cultural shift is underway. It’s a trend precipitated by demand elasticity